Chaja Gurke was born in Lodz in Poland on 16 June 1894 as the daughter of Berel Gurke and Perl Opatoiski. She married in Lodz on 20 April the 25-year old Abram Moisze Bialek from Pajeczno, a butcher and later also cook, a son of Judka Bialek and Sura Lieberman. After their wedding, they left for Antwerp where they stayed shortly in the Mercatorstraat 70, but returned to Lodz where two children were born, namely Szaja in 1921 and Esther in 1923. In 1926 the family moved again to Antwerp were in 1927 their son Herman was born.
At some point it was decided to leave Belgium for the Netherlands and Chaja’s husband Abram left in 1928 and stayed among others in Rotterdam, Den Haag and Amsterdam, where Abram exploited food parlors at the various addresses; he was a meat products specialist and cook. Chaja and the children joined him in Amsterdam, where she too has been registered as “owner of a food parlor”. In 1937 the family moved again, yet to Govert Flinckstraat 326 3rd floor. Their marriage however did not last and was dissolved in Den Haag on 21 April 1939.
In July 1939 Chaja Gurke and her three children moved in with Eliazer Joachim Peper, who lived in the Tweede Jan van der Heijdenstraat 43 2nd floor. He was born 19 January 1893 in Amsterdam and was a son of Joachim Peper and Sophia Barmes. On 29 May 1940 Chaja Gurke married him but from this marriage came no offspring.
After the divorce, Abram and Chaja’s children remained with their mother and they too moved to Tweede Jan van der Heijdenstraat 43. However, Esther left “home” on 14 January 1942 as she got married then to Joseph (Joop) van Thijn, a son of Benjamin van Thijn and Aaltje Bartels and then moved into a house with Joop at Amstellaan 80 1st floor in Amsterdam-South.
Szaja, a cook by profession and Herman Bialek, locksmith in training and both unmarried, were arrested at home on 9 March 1943 and carried off to Westerbork. Already on 10 March deported to Sobibor, where they were both killed on arrival there in the gas chambers on 13 March 1943.
Their sister, Esther Bialek, who had married the 22-year old Joseph van Thijn at the age of 18, possibly responded to the call for “provision of additional work in Germany”. They were registered in Westerbork on 25 July 1942 and put on transport to Auschwitz on 31 July. On arrival there on 3 September both were put to work as forced labourers. De circumstances were horrible and it is not known when exactly Esther and Joseph have lost their lives there. It was therefore that the Dutch Ministry of Justice after the war ordered the City of Amsterdam to draw up certificates of death for both in which was established that Esther van Thijn and Joseph van Thijn had died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Chaja’s ex, Abram Bialek moved after the divorce in 1939 to Keizersgracht 722, in 1940 to Prinsengracht 598 and in 1941 to nr. 636. Via Dutch Jewish labour camps, Westerbork, concentration camp Vught, Extern Command Moerdijk, he was deported from Vught to Auschwitz on 23 September 1943. On arrival there he was put to work as forced labourer again and found himself in January 1944 in camp Auschwitz III – Monowitz. Eventually he lost his life in the biggest side camp of Dachau, the Extern Command Allach on 29 May 1945 at the most.
Chaja Peper-Gurke and her husband Eliazer Joachim Peper were arrested and carried off to Westerbork during the large-scale and secretly prepared round-up of Sunday 20 June 1943. For unknown reasons, Eliazer Peper ended up in the penal barrack 67 but his wife Chaja Gurke in barrack 58. On 13 July they were deported to Sobibor where on arrival there on 16 July 1943, both immediately were killed in the gas chambers there.
Sources among others: the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Chaja Gurke, Abram Moisze Bialek, Eliazer Joachim Peper, Szaja Bialek, Esther van Thijn-Bialek, Herman Bialek and Joseph van Thijn; Residence card of Tweede Jan Steenstraat 53 Amsterdam; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Chaja Peper-Gurke, Eliazer Joachim Peper, Szaja Bialek, Esther van Thijn-Bialek, Herman Bialek and Joseph van Thijn and the certificates of death for Joseph van Thijn from the Register A-52-fol.68v, nr. 401 dated 29 Sep.1950.